Gardner Survey: Attract working parents with day care - and more

Brice Wallace 

Companies looking to recruit or retain workers with children can create an advantage over their competitors by offering those working parents some family-friendly accommodations.

And they don’t have to simply be in the form of on-site child care centers.

That summarizes the sentiment of speakers at a recent Newsmaker Breakfast hosted by the University of Utah’s Kem C. Garner Policy Institute after it released the results of a statewide survey that suggests that there are a number of supportive policies that companies could put in place for working parents in the midst of an ultra-competitive labor market.

The survey, conducted in partnership with the Salt Lake Chamber, shows that while most are satisfied with their current work and child care arrangement, many parents and guardians would find helpful policies such as increased wage/salary, paid family leave, flexible/stable hours and schedule, remote/hybrid work options, better part-time job opportunities and child care assistance.

Nic Dunn, director of Utah Community Builders, a nonprofit social impact foundation created by the Salt Lake Chamber, said several companies in Utah have been forward-thinking regarding family-friendly policies.

“There are a number of them that have had some success doing this,” Dunn said. “I think that sort of the underlying point from the example of those businesses, as well as what bears out in the data, is that it’s not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.”

In years past, the thinking often was that a company wanting to be family-friendly needed to pay to have an on-site child care facility, Dunn said. But many found that to be too complex and thus opted to do nothing instead.

“What this data shows,” he said, “is there is a wide variety of what Utah parents want and need.”

The survey indicates that many parents/guardians would work more or change their job if they had supportive policies at work.

Cydni Tetro, CEO and board member of Brandless Inc., said remote and hybrid work options “are not solving the problem of a parent having to work full time and take care of children full time. We have to have better solutions.”

Growing flexibility is causing the concept of a 9-to-5 job to go away, but efforts must be made to keep employees from working “every second of every day,” she said.

Stressing a need for employers and employees to communicate well with each other, Tetro said for changes to occur, a culture of accountability must be in place.

“It means we have cultures where we hold people accountable and then we let people work like they need to to balance their lives,” she said. “People need the flexibility to work how they need to work at any given moment in time, and they need to be able to do that without asking approval.”

A culture that expects workers to be responsible and get their work done, whether at a soccer game or dance recital or tending a sick child, requires a fundamental shift for company leadership to trust their workers, she said.

“That’s what everyone needs,” Tetro said of remote work and flexibility. “They need the ability to live their lives, have that reflected in the things they need to do, they need to be trusted in their jobs so they’re accountable and they need to be able to feel like they’re empowered to make decisions.”

When those elements are in place, employees are more loyal, more committed to work and more engaged, Tetro said.

Tetro acknowledged that many jobs — nursing, for example — need to be performed in-person. But the first employers able to solve workforce issues and accommodate workforce preferences will get the employees they want, she said. Those without accommodations face the likelihood of losing their workers.

“If your culture is not supporting families, then people have optionality, and they are taking advantage of the optionality,” she said, noting that many people, especially women, have switched jobs during the past year and a half. “And that is demonstrating that they are going to go to places and cultures of companies that work for who they are and what they need.”

The survey indicated that 21 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with their current work and child care situation.

“If I’m an employer, I think, ‘Wow, 21 percent of the adult parent workforce is not quite getting what they’re looking for. If I can go provide that for them, and if I can provide the work and family balance that they’re looking for, that’s a huge potential for me to fill my workforce need,’” Dunn said.

State Rep. Susan Pulsipher, R-South Jordan, said the upcoming legislative session likely will feature a discussion on child care policies. “And this survey will be particularly important because while you’re looking at policies, what you really want is to not just guess what we need but to know, and not just guess what parents will want but to know what they want,” she said.

Some workforce issues have been around for a while but were made more acute because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dunn said.

“This is an ongoing, longstanding issue that’s been important to the business community that was made even more important by the events of the past couple of years,” he said. “And this study, in partnership with the Gardner Institute, was really the first important, crucial step to understanding the landscape so that the private sector can be responsive to the needs and preferences of Utah families.”